A Trial Run
by silentmusic16
Summary: Satsuki lets loose the quietest breath Ryuuko has ever heard, and in that puff of air is all of the fragility and doubt and fear existing in this otherwise absolutely steel woman. That sound, the single breath, is like a storm blowing through Ryuuko's resolve, through all of her will.


**I'm sorry for being away for months, but life has a habit of getting in the way of the things we want to do most. Regardless, I recently re-watched "Kill La Kill" and was finally inspired to write something for the series. For what it's worth, SatsuRyu was the thing that kind of saved me back in 2016 when I was very close to abandoning fanfiction altogether, and it feels great to get a chance to contribute to the fandom (which I hope sees some revitalization now that we're getting a video game for the series). **

**Enjoy~**

* * *

_"Perhaps I need to change the format of my love for her. Or the font."_

Fish in Exile \- Vi Khi Nao

* * *

Ryuuko Matoi brushes a hand through her ever-messy hair exactly once, takes the quickest of glances in the mirror by the front door, and, happy with the results, sets off from her apartment. She's anxious; her hand keeps finding its place above her left breast not far from her heart, gripping and searching for a friend who has been gone for far too long but whose absence is still keenly felt. Her other hand is in the pocket of her tattered jogger jacket. She exits the lobby of her apartment with a casual slink - she'll never get around to fixing her bad posture - and takes a right to fit herself into the busting crowd on the sunny street.

There are lots of people around her, though none that she knows. This place is far bigger of a city than where she'd lived in before. It lacks the relative familiarity of the people - and the streets, and the buildings, the corners and alleys - of old Honouji where, even when she came across an unfamiliar face, at least she knew why there were there; they were students, or the families of students, or the few who came to the twisty mountain of a city in order to strike up a business with these generally lower class, but spirited people. Now the cleaner, open lanes of her new home stretch out in a normal, grid-like fashion. There isn't a stink - or, what stink there is is not so overbearing, less grease and dirt and life, and more exhaust, more stale, the fragrant heat of the sun baking off of concrete buildings and ozone glass. There's more space to move, and yet, ironically, fewer places to be. She finds it strange. It still doesn't feel like home, though, if she's honest with her self, very few places ever have. Home boils down to wherever the Mankanshokus are, and the mansion where she grew up. The latter, unfortunately for Ryuuko, is no longer even a pile of charred remains. She'd gone all over Japan after her high school graduation - her, a bike, and little else - to see if she could find her own path the way that her friends, her former enemies, and her father had. She's gained a few scars and a lot of miles on the odometer, some great experiences and some now-dried tear tracks, but hadn't found what she was looking for. It doesn't help that, even now, she still doesn't actually _know_ what it is she's looking for.

At the corner she checks her scuffed-up phone. There are about a million texts from Mako. Half of those are misspelled, a third of _those_ pictures of whatever random thing the text is about (or not, often enough), and all of them are filled with every kind of emoji available. She can hear them read out in Mako's voice in her head, backed by a chorus of Hallelujah, can see the holy spotlight, and she chuckles. There's a single message from Nonon, the latest in their back-and-forth conversation consisting almost entirely of music recommendations and thinly-veiled compliments-as-threats. From Satsuki - from her older sister - she is given only an address. It's where she's headed now.

Ryuuko passes a street-side vendor peddling takoyaki and with a flip of a coin from her thumb wordlessly exchanges her cash for a piping hot pile of fried octopus goodness. It's a clear day, but cold, and the steam rises from the fried goods in the same way that it pours from her mouth with each breath. She wishes she wore more than just the track top and a pair of ripped denims, what with the exposed skin on her thigh freezing with each gust of the wind, but its too late now to go back, and besides, she doesn't expect to be outdoors for long, She's still effectively immortal - something that comes with its ups and downs, for sure - and has a feeling that hypothermia probably isn't going to take her down if Ragyo couldn't.

Thinking of her mother curls her hands into fists. It's already been two years. She knows she could be - should be - but isn't - over it. The smirk of her dearest mother, that animal thing, was snake-like. Or perhaps it was more like a gorgon, what with the way Ragyo could freeze blood and bone and body with a glare - it still shows up in her dreams. It twists around the walls in her apartment in the dark. When she sees her own reflection in the mirror, she sometimes notices it there too, in the similarities she has with mommy dearest: in the cut of her jaw, or the glint in her eyes, or the set of her brow. The resemblance has lead to quite a few broken mirrors and instantly-healed scars. She tends to avoid looking at her reflection for too long.

But then again, her reflection also reminds her of her sister. Of Satsuki, and their own similarities. The thought puts a kick in her step, and though her head had bowed low in bad memories and dour thoughts, and while her fists shook in fury, the new image calms her. Satsuki. They'd been at one another's throats, literally, far, far too often. But she'd been drawn to the woman before they were aware of their connection, and, though she rarely shows it, is truly in awe of her older sister's will and strength and power. Her tenacity. Her sacrifices. Her sister, a tyrant for mercy, an empress of ambition, a sovereign of strength. The two are entirely different people, no doubt about that, but she respects Satsuki perhaps more than she respects anyone else in the world.

And she loves the woman too. As a more than just a sister. Ryuuko feels the blush burn her cheeks in the cool air and hides it behind her red scarf. That's a realization that came very quickly once they'd begun to try and bridge the chasm of years where one was presumed dead, and the other little more than a fleeting wish. Ryuuko waits a moment at a stoplight. Cars cross where people are supposed to, and with this pause as she waits for the box across the street to blink "walk", she shakes her head and runs another hand through her hair. She can't fight the attraction. Trying to do that had been part of her little soul-searching excursion, but that trip to the farm had come up fruitless. Its hard, she thinks to herself, not to find herself attracted to a woman she'd seen in clothing far naughtier than strict nudity. And something in Ryuuko's rebel spirit can't help but swoon, coquettishly, at a woman in uniform.

Finally the light changes and she crosses the street. She's close now, and her shivers aren't just from the cold. She'd been gone six months since graduating from the school she and Mako were sent to after Honouji collapsed. She'd been unsuccessful in quelling her attraction to her sister, and for a moment she is reminded of how monstrous she felt when she first found out about her true nature. Inhuman, she thought then. She thinks it now too, but the word lacks bite. She'd gotten over the first reason she felt that way, and the long, black highways of Japan, its fields and mountains, sea costs, crags, forests, cities and towns, shrines and sights, had done little more than impress upon her spirit that somehow, in the great big mess of this world, maybe she could be okay with who she is and how she feels.

The office building before her is as grandiose as she expects from Satsuki. Glinting like a steel blade, it rises out of the ground and up maybe fifty stories high. It is all glass and steel, a monument as well as an office space both modern in material and squared down into utilitarian brutalism indicative of her sister's pragmatic shows of force. Ryuuko walks through the double glass doors and out of the crowds. The lobby is sparse and surprisingly inviting; the waiting room chairs look comfortable, at least, and the various potted plants, the occasional pristine fish tank dotted around the room, are somehow less tacky than they should be. She takes in the sight and walks over to the reception desk where a now glasses-less Rei Hououmaru takes calls and sends emails. It's all decidedly pedestrian for a woman who helped to almost bring down the world. Though this isn't the first time they'd come face to face since the ordeal, Ryuuko's initial reaction is to reach for her long-gone scissor blade - Rei, Ragyo's former assistant and Satsuki's current one, sends tremors of violence through her spine. Ryuuko squares her shoulders, cracks her neck, thinks about escape, and then clears her throat. Rei has changed, just as Satsuki has. It's only fair to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"I'm here to see my sis-I mean, Kiryuuin - Satsuki. I'm -

"Matoi." Rei nods. "She's expecting you. You can head right on up to the top floor. If you'd like me to accompany you - "

"'Salright. I'm sure I'll find it. Just gotta see which door has the most light pouring out of it, eh?" she jokes. The woman smiles, but doesn't laugh, and Ryuuko wilts as she walks towards the elevators.

She's the only one inside of it. There are far too many buttons - far too many potential stops - but she figures that it's uncouth for her to find a stairwell and jet herself up with a single jump. She is still inhuman, she knows, but she's not going to flaunt it. The elevator moves steadily up through the floors. She shares the car with various guests at different points, most getting off a floor or two after they get on, all looking at her with concerned gazes, or out of the corners of their eyes with suspicion. Saving the world doesn't come with the greatest bonuses in popularity, not when you're a walking, talking, human-alien hybrid. She'd gotten used to the glances on the street, but those in the elevator car are close. Proximity makes them hurt, like holding a sharp object closer to its blade than the hilt. There are a few appreciative looks. She tries ignoring those too.

Finally she makes it to the top. She's the only one in the elevator car by then, and in the relative isolation she readies herself. Every meeting with Satsuki is a spar, even now, even as close as they've become since Ragyo was defeated. It's in their blood, hotheadedness, and in their equally steel wills. Another shared trait, though less of a physical one. Even when they're at their kindest to one another, it is something of a battle: who will take care of who better? Who will look over the other more closely? Who will be able to overcome their inner stubbornness and be the most affectionate?

Maybe not all of the battles were ones she wanted to win.

There is only one room on this floor, and it is separated from the elevator and hallway by an immense set of double doors, deep mahogany and taller than Gamagoori. Under the door-jamb a white light pours out and eradicates shadows. At least it tells her that Satsuki isn't feeling as down as she had been following Ragyo's defeat. Ryuuko understood, then, that even the achievement of one's greatest goal didn't prevent a kind of sorrow once it was over. How do you move on in life after your one, singular ambition has been accomplished? She felt the same, after avenging her father and saving the world, whether she showed it or not.

A deep breath, scuba diver-esque, and then she opens the double doors. Satsuki is behind a desk as immense as the doorway, signing some document in her flawless handwriting. Her brows are knitted together like a set of children's mittens, her mouth a hard line of annoyance. Her hair is longer than when she cut it following her rebirth, though it's not the royal length it was back in her Honouji days, and it sits against her back, flowing down her shoulders in a luxurious curtain. She is wearing an impossibly soft cashmere sweater, her ample chest snuggled tightly, and Ryuuko has to pinch herself to look away. The rest of the office is sparse. There is nothing on the walls, no diploma or motivational poster, and only a pair of chairs sitting in front of the desk. A book case sits to her right, beside a wide window looking over the city. The only pictures in the room are on Satsuki's desk: one is of her four closet allies, smiling, taken at the start of their graduation day; another, her only real parent, Soroi, who turned down her attempt to fire him and still keeps himself busy at her home; and one of herself and Ryuuko, arms around one another's shoulders. It was taken at the party they held on the first anniversary of their victory. Ryuuko sniffles, but pretends it's the cold. She does not believe her own lie for a moment.

"I swear, Ryuuko, it's times like these when I long for the days when I could simply throw a few students in Ultima Uniforms at a business rival to get what I wanted. All of this bureaucratic red tape...it's immensely frustrating." She looks up from the paper and her frown flees, a small smile growing in its place. "But forget about that. Please, have a seat. Would you like some tea?" she gets up from her spot and wanders over to the back corner of the room, which Ryuuko had glanced over. A tea set and a water boiler sit primed and ready for use. "It doesn't compare to Soroi's, of course, but I hope it's to your liking."

Ryuuko cannot take her eyes off of her sister as the woman sets about preparing the tea with practiced moves. The tilt of her head as she measures out the leaves, the incredible poise while she pours the boiling water into the individual glasses, the grace of her wrist while she stirs the tea. It's a simple process, really, but Ryuuko is enthralled. She has to fight to remember to breathe properly, to contain the saliva in her mouth. Satsuki's back is as straight as always. Her spine is a blade. Her body is still a weapon. But there is a peace now, a calmness and assuredness, that highlights the beauty that was once obscured behind a veil of authoritarian fear-mongering and unfettered brutality. Satsuki is a sheathed sword, what with battle far from necessary these days, but she hadn't been tossed in a museum archive as war memorabilia. She, instead, continues to be a source of strength and power for others, a weapon above the mantle of a war hero.

"Yeah, guess'll have some." Ryuuko manages. She fidgets in the seat. Instead of staring at Satsuki any longer - to do so might make her do something she would regret - she glances across the desk and out the window. The view from the building is grand, what with the city laid out before her shining in the mid-day sun. The sky is flat and clear and blue, just as it should be. It feels close enough to touch, were Ryuuko to reach out that window. Satsuki always did like to be on top.

"Here." Satsuki hands Ryuuko the porcelain cup and the way their fingers brush is heaven. Ryuuko has to once more overcome the crazy realization that this is a woman she'd tried to kill multiple times. A woman with whom she traded an outrageous amount of violence. And yet, it's now the softest of touches that feel like they're going to stop her life-fiber infused heart. The gushy feeling is nauseating in a good way, or as good as nauseating can be. Satsuki takes the seat beside hers, and not the one on the other side of the desk, as she expects. The sudden closeness is strange and magnetic. She feels her body tilt and angle itself towards her sister. "Now tell me, Ryuuko, how was your trip?"

"Oi, this is hot!" she complains blowing on the tea. "But, you know, it was nice. Saw lots of stuff. Mostly good, some bad. Got in a few fights." she raises her fist up in the space between them. "Some folks didn't believe what had happened, or blamed me or some some shit. They called you out too, an', well, you can't expect me not to do somethin' about that. Wish I could show you some cool scars like I used to have, but nowadays I heal too quick for that."

"A curse, I see." Satsuki smirks. "How awful, to heal in seconds."

"Watch it, or I'll give you some scars myself. It'd be up to you to say if they were cool or not."

"I very much doubt you'd ruin my new office building already. And I don't want to, in any case. So please, continue." Satsuki blows on her own tea, and Ryuuko holds back a growl when she sees the way Satsuki's lips purse to do so, the fresh pink and full roundness of those lips so inviting she could weep. She aches holding herself back. She aches to just let go.

"Uh, there ain't much else to say."

"You were gone for six months. Surely, you have something you took away from the experience."

"Nah, it's all - well, I dunno, it's hard to explain maturity, or whatever it is I kinda tried for. There's somethin' personal you find when you live on the road, I think."

"I wasn't sure my dear sister could even think of higher concepts." Satsuki smirks at Ryuuko's unamused sneer. She has one leg crossed over the other, and switches between the two gracefully. Ryuuko fights with all of her willpower not to try and glance at what's revealed in that split second. "But I suppose such a personal time is just that. Personal. Tell me, do you like the office?"

"It's very you."

"I'll take that as a yes." A strange expression flashes across her face, and in the pause of her hand as it lifts the cup to her lips. It's gone in the next second, and Ryuuko doesn't have the time to figure out the look. "May I take that as a yes?

"'Course." she replies instantly. "But it's like...so long as the work you're doing here is good, it doesn't matter too much what the place looks like. And I think using those REVOCS funds for cleaning up after mo-" She bites her tongue. "After Ragyo, is what's important."

"As do I."

Silence falls over them. Ryuuko catches her sister's eye, then looks away. It's hard, still, to fight herself and her feelings. It's very hard with Satsuki so close. She doesn't want to quell the desire to wrap the other girl in her arms as friends would, as sisters would, as lovers would, as whatever - so long they have both gone without the kind of affection and intimacy growing girls should have.

Ryuuko drinks down the rest of her tea in lieu of speaking first. It burns on the way down, settles in her chest in a pool that spreads its warmth through streams and tributaries throughout her lungs, around her heart, before it finally descends. She looks back to Satsuki's perfectly manicured fingers wrapped around the teacup handle and the white saucer. Again, it's amazing to think of the destruction those fingers caused, of the strength lying within, when they can so delicately grasp onto a thing as breakable, as fragile, as porcelain. Her sister sets the cup down after a few more sips of her own, and then reaches over, tentatively, to wrap one of Ryuuko's hands in both of hers. The action is unexpected, the warmth and tenderness belying the resolve of those fingers, and Ryuuko takes a breath deep and sharp as a stab wound. She looks up into her sister's eyes, and then her gaze unwittingly travels down from the eyes to the sharp, straight nose, back again to those full, pink - now wet, now glistening - lips, and then down further. Satsuki's neck is long and taught and unblemished; her collarbones beg to be traced, or maybe bitten. Her cleavage, accentuated but not shown off, perhaps more of a welcoming sight to Ryuuko than anything else she can imagine. She gulps, and her eyes find Satsuki's once again. She cannot speak.

"Tell me, sister, are you going away again any time soon?"

"Nah," she says. "No, got no plans for anything like that. The road's a nice place to be, all long and empty and stuff. It was my home for years. But I think I just need to settle for a bit, you know?"

Satsuki still has not let go of Ryuuko's hands. Her eyes bore into the younger girl's, as they always have, ever since the first time they'd seen each other. Ryuuko doesn't look away, but she can feel herself dismantling, she can feel herself want to dismantle, to separate and break down and present every little bit, every vessel and fiber to Satsuki for inspection. Is she good enough? Is she enough at all? "I can imagine. You've never had much of a home, have you?"

"Do you call boarding schools home?"

"They aren't."

"Then just Mako's place. During all that stuff back in Honouji...I think that was the only place I felt safe."

Satsuki nods, then removes her hands from around Ryuuko's. The loss of warmth isn't immediate, but this makes its gradual disappearance all the more prolonged. The older woman stands, and Ryuuko watches her walk around the immense desk, then reach down into a drawer to pull out a glinting, steel thing. It's hidden in her hand in a graceful twist of the wrist and then Satsuki is back in the seat beside Ryuuko. She says nothing about what's in her hand, doesn't even acknowledge the fact that she had gotten up. She absentmindedly rubs the wrinkles out of her sweater. Ryuuko doesn't even try to pull her eyes from her sister's breasts as the clothing tightens momentarily around her chest.

"What's that?" Ryuuko leans forward, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

"I missed you greatly, Ryuuko. I've missed you ever since I thought you were dead, when I was a child."

"Sats..." Ryuuko swallows. She cannot handle this kind of emotional outreach, even now; it's embarrassing, and vulnerability - openness - still feels like presenting wounds ready to be prodded or rubbed with salt. If she isn't the one reaching out, if it's her hand being grasped instead of her hand doing the grasping, then the opportunity for being hurt is too high. She smirks, and it's forced and fake and altogether wrong. "How're those four boneheads of yours? I don't think I've seen any of 'em since that party before I left. You know, the one we had at the Mankanshoku's new place? I'm sure - "

"I've lived without you for far too long." Satsuki continues as if she wasn't interrupted in the first place.

"Neither of us have had family, really. She hurt you, and I know you haven't forgotten it. And Dad wasn't around much for me anyway. I think," Ryuuko swallows the rock in her throat, and it's rough on the way down. The damage is good, though, less a pain and more like scraping off dead skin. Exfoliation of the emotions. They hadn't spoken about any of this, not in any of the time they'd spent together since the End, with a capital E. And they'd spent a good amount of time together: light-hearted times. Tender times. Times when they were back at each other's throats, with hands clenching in muscle memory for a half a pair of scissors or a blade as tough as the soul of the woman who wielded it. But this laying out of their traumas like buffet food, sampling this complex here, that inner demon there, it's all new. "I think that, uh," she turns away. Her cheeks are red klaxons, her breath heavy. "Ah, nevermind. This isn't us, Satsuki."

"I'm surprised you're not bursting into flames, your face is so red." The older woman smirks about as gently as one can smirk, but her eyes fall all the same, and she leans back in her chair. She crosses one leg over the other again. Ryuuko steels herself this time; she can't very well get any more red, or more turned on, even with how dramatic the conversation is becoming. Her sister is just so hot.

That sentence, in all of its complex glory, sends Ryuuko into a state nearly as unsorted.

"But," Satsuki continues, and the smile disappears as fast as it had come. "I suppose you're right. This is not the time or the place for a discussion like this." She folds her hands in front of her, on her lap, and the movement is almost like a reset of the entire conversation. "I will not demand this of you, Ryuuko - I'm done demanding things. I am not our mother, and I'm no longer a commander. But I hope you'll consider moving in with me." There is not a tremor to betray her nervousness, nor a twitch of her heavy eyebrows.

Ryuuko doesn't believe what she's hearing. She itches around the inside of her ear to hear better. She's never gotten something she wants so easily in life, not without fighting tooth and claw and scissor and fiber for it. Not without bleeding for it. "Say that again?"

"Ryuuko, if you'd like, I want you to move in with me."

"Is that why you wanted to meet up with me so soon?" She cannot fight the urge to tease the other woman. It's her only method of defense outside of punching something, and for maybe the first time in her whole life she doesn't actually want to punch Satsuki. There's a lot she wants to do to her sister. A lot of it involves mashing bodies together, just without the punching and the bleeding. Or, mostly minus bleeding. Depends on Satsuki's preferences. "Still used to getting everything you want, eh?"

"Am I not allowed to want to see my sister? I said it earlier; we went too long without knowing one another. We went too long being enemies, and then life...my job, your wandering...I would rather we stopped being so distant, Ryuuko."

"Yeah, well, maybe I feel the same." she scratches her cheek out of nervousness and can no longer look Satsuki in the eyes. She is caught more than ever before in that space between sisterly love and devotion, and decidedly un-sisterly love and attraction. There is so little she can say now that wouldn't give her away, that wouldn't expose her for what she is. She isn't sure if she wants Satsuki to know now. To know ever. She'd just gained a sister; losing one was not on the itinerary.

"Then what do you say?"

"What brought this on?"

"I don't believe I'm a difficult person to read, Ryuuko." She turns her head to look out the window. There is a light coming from it in wide rays not unlike the blinding brilliance that followed Satsuki around in the days when they fought Ragyo. Rather than emanating from her, it obscures her. It obscures her eyes and her mouth, though the tightened muscles of her throat are exposed in turn. Ryuuko clenches her fingers tightly. She wants more than anything to reach out and rub a hand down that throat. Or maybe to stain that bright skin with bite mark after bite mark as a claim.

"No need to try an' read you when you're the kinda girl who likes to hear herself talk. Or yell."

"You're still dodging the question."

The younger woman sighs. She bites her lip. It would be so easy to just agree, but fear holds her tongue ransom, and fear isn't an enemy she can so easily defeat. She sees before her scene after scene of just what could go wrong - unrequited advances, or two hard-headed personalities driving a wedge between she and her sister, or overwhelming jealousy, or any number of things that might tear her and Satsuki apart. The attraction she feels towards her sister still feels monstrous. "I'd - I'd love to, Sats, but - I dunno, I'm just not used to...used to - "

Her sister nods. "A trial run, then?"

The suggestion comes all too quickly, and Satsuki's lack of immediate disappointment makes it known that she must've expected some resistance. The older woman holds herself higher and folds her hands in her lap again. The situation might've been any random business meeting, Satsuki is so formal. "Huh?"

"I'm sure you have your reasons, Ryuuko, and I won't question them. But a successful strategist does not rely on a single plan, or a single movement in battle. I want to live with you, and I will not deny that." Ryuuko blushes at the admittance, but Satsuki doesn't comment. "So I'll offer you this: live with me for a week, and then give me your answer."

Ryuuko turns her head away from her sister. It's impossible to top this woman - it always had been, even back in Honouji. That she hasn't simply seen fit to force Ryuuko into the deal surprises the younger woman, and in the end, what little resistance she put up crumbles. "Sure...sure, I'll try out livin' with you. "

Satsuki lets loose the quietest breath Ryuuko has ever heard, and in that puff of air is all of the fragility and doubt and fear existing in this otherwise absolutely steel woman. That sound, the single breath, is like a storm blowing through Ryuuko's resolve, through all of her will. She knows she can't let Satsuki down, and even as she regrets that she agreed so quickly, that she hasn't fought harder for the independence she treasured her whole life, she does not regret the relaxation that pours off of Satsuki like steam off of hot tea. She fidgets with that unruly red lick of hair and avoids Satsuki's eyes. Her sister opens her palm, and now its very clear that the thing she had grabbed from her drawer was a key. A key to the penthouse suite Satsuki owns in the city (Ryuuko, as of the year before, already owns a key to the manor that was once Ragyo's home). Satsuki throws the key underhand and when Ryuuko catches it, she feels something of the cold sting of its steel in her heart. Satsuki smiles down at her, though, with those eyebrows smoothed and gentle and kind, reaching out to place a comforting hand on Ryuuko's knee, and in that moment it doesn't much matter that Ryuuko wants to tear Satsuki's clothes off on the floor of this spartan office space - or maybe there, on that expansive wooden desk - and show her sister all of the love she holds in her fiber-enhanced body. All that matters is that she has made the woman happy.

* * *

The view from Satsuki's apartment is exactly what Ryuuko expects it to be. There is sunlight like a film coating every inch of the place as it pours through the wide windows. She stands on a plush white rug in a room nearly as bare as the office - there's a squarish white-leather couch and a low glass coffee table, a large recliner, a chaise lounge, and a single potted plant in the living room. Ryuuko discovered her bedroom earlier in the left wing of the large apartment, beside the bathroom, and it had already been filled with what few pieces of furniture she owned, courtesy of Gamagoori. Ryuuko turns from the window and, suddenly curious, walks quietly towards Satsuki's bedroom. It's in the the right wing, closer to the fully-featured kitchen. Her sister is nowhere in sight, and, after looking around the place conspiratorially, Ryuuko opens the door and peers inside. There is a king-sized bed covered in a white comforter so perfectly made that each corner is as taught as a drum skin. She steps over to the bed and rubs her hand over the soft, expensive blanket; even her most gentle passes are followed by an impression, or a trail. Ryuuko bites her lip when a vision of her and Satsuki doing anything and everything on this very bed makes its way through her head. She gives herself a tiny slap on the cheek to chase away the thought and continues looking around the room. Bakuzan, in its two incarnations, is displayed above the bed. There is little else.

"Matoi, did you not learn that barging into rooms is generally considered rude?" Satsuki's voice makes Ryuuko jump out of her skin. She flushes, sure that her sister can see through her messy black hair and into her mind to see the lustful things she's been imagining. She shakes her head to clear the thought like an etch-a-sketch. "I know you spent your youth being a miscreant, but you can grow out of that, I presume."

"I wanted to see how the other half lives, you know? Compared to how cramped the Mankanshoku's place was, this apartment might as well be outer space." She purposefully makes her way back to the entrance where Satsuki stands, and leans herself against the door-jamb to her sister's room. She smiles widely when Satsuki places a hand on her own hip, raising those dark eyebrows in amusement. She is no longer a blade of a woman when she looks carefree, when those rigid stances all straight-backed and stiff soften into curving shapes and gentle outlines. When she leans forward, only from the top, her ample chest is bared just a bit more, and she could be any other girl in this world - could be any other girl, but is, perhaps, the most different of all. A woman who'd been a warrior from five, a girl who endured torture at the hands of her own mother, a sister who nearly killed - and had nearly been killed by - a sister. It is easy to forget the past when she lets out a laugh. It's harder when she bares her scars.

"I hope it's up to your standards, then." Satsuki grins challengingly.

"Yeah, I could see myself on that bed." Ryuuko lets out, and then her heart stops for a beat, life fibers be damned. She doesn't have to look into the mirror-shine of Satsuki's glass-paneled furniture to know that her face is as red as Senketsu's scarf. She knows too, from the way that Satsuki inclines her head, from the way that her sister's eyes narrow just slightly, from the way that those perfect lips open unspeakingly that the comment has very well been understood.

She doesn't understand what Satsuki's reaction might mean, and the ignorance is horrifying.

"I-I mean, this whole apartment! I was, uh, unsure! Of, shit, of how I might fit in here because, you know, I only ever lived with Mako and her family - and Dad, I guess, but - hey, uh, your room's real neat, you shoulda seen what my spot in the Mankanshoku's used to look like - "

Satsuki places a single finger on Ryuuko's lips. She gazes down at her, their height still one of their biggest differences, and does not speak. Ryuuko feels like she did on the day when she first arrived at Honouji, when she first witnessed Satsuki shout from what looked like the top of the world. There is a chill in her heart, and a challenge in her blood, and something caught between hopelessness and helplessness that she cannot fathom. She tries her hardest not to open her mouth wide and wrap that finger between her lips. "Ryuuko, I don't know what happened to you over your trip, but I don't think I've seen you get embarrassed this much since you first put on Senketsu."

"Yeah, we'll we can't all have cold blood, sis." she says, and her tone is only somewhat teasing. That old habit of hers, to bite back after embarrassment, to follow up vulnerability with barbs, comes back without warning. "I don't think I've ever seen you embarrassed once, not even when you had to wear Junketsu."

Satsuki narrows her eyes. Her hand, which has already left Ryuuko's mouth, clenches tightly, and she leans closer, almost pressing Ryuuko into the door jamb. "I assure you that I am a very warm blooded woman. Do you dare me to show you?"

Instead of responding, Ryuuko matches Satsuki's glare. There is never a winner - there has never been a winner - when they meet like this, when both sisters bare iron will against iron will, and only in the interest of the safety of the apartment do they manage to control themselves. The silence between them is as charged as a storm cloud, and it is a surprise to both when Ryuuko is first to look away. There is a slimy something sloshing in her chest, and she knows that this escalation has only happened because she can't keep herself from wanting to touch her sister in a very un-sisterly way.

"...Nah," she finally says, and her eyes find the floor very interesting. "Guess I'm just a little nervous or something."

"Don't be. This is a change for both of us, but I know that it will be good for us in the end." Satsuki backs off then, lessening the pressure and the impression she puts towards her sister, and then turns, walking back into the main room of the apartment. "But in any case, are you hungry? I have been learning from Soroi," she says "And I believe that I can make you something comparable even to Mrs. Mankanshoku's famous croquettes."

"I'd like to see you try." she challenges.

* * *

Ryuuko believes that she is going to go mad. It's the only answer to her ever-lessening self-control, to the way her blood has been boiling almost nonstop since she semi-moved into her sister's apartment, boiling so hot it might as well be steam filling her life-fiber-infused veins instead. She can't turn around without being reminded of her sister, of her attraction, desire, _lust_ towards Satsuki, and it is a kind of blissful torture or painful blessing; she is not sure which. There it is, on every seat in the place, in every room, on every wall. In the week or so she's lived in the apartment a day hasn't passed without her heart stopping from being so close to Satsuki - to a Satsuki who manages to show more and more vulnerability, more openness, and a greater lack of discretion with her. The older woman has already, on more than one occasion, approached Ryuuko in just a bra and panties, holding up a new top or a dress asking which she ought to wear to the office. She has walked around the place in nothing but a towel following a shower and Ryuuko swears the glint in her eyes is pleased whenever she notices Ryuuko staring. Up until now, Ryuuko didn't know Satsuki practiced various stretches and meditative forms early every morning, wearing little more than a sports bra and a pair of stretchy yoga pants. Seeing this on the first morning after she moved in nearly killed Ryuuko, and it took every ounce of her will to hold back from jumping at her sister until they were rolling on the floor and clashing bodies much like they did when they fought. She sizzles, angry at herself for failing so hard to leave these feelings behind. Her trip was unsuccessful, to say the least. It had all just gotten worse, and now her desire was threatening to ruin the first chance she had to live with the sister she never knew.

But it isn't just lust burning through her veins. There is true comfort to being with Satsuki that is undeniable. Satsuki, now without a near-literal demon to focus all of her efforts on destroying, has calmed down far more than Ryuuko ever thought possible. She has taken her previous self-sufficiency to a more domestic level: cooking and cleaning are done with the same efficiency that she used to rule over Honouji. With Soroi staying at the Kiryuuin mansion, and Ryuuko a less-than-neat person, she has little choice. Every day has made Ryuuko feel like she's being spoiled, but it's hard to fight back when she never had a mother or a sister to spoil her before this. Guilt and happiness coexist in her heart.

To Ryuuko's immense delight, Satsuki's attention is ladled on her with a cautious smothering, where she wields words of praise like weapons. There are gentle, affectionate touches on shoulders and arms, on Ryuuko's thighs and her head, that fill her heart with love. It isn't that Satsuki has become a weak person, needy and overbearing - she is just strong enough now to give the affection she had held back for so long to the sister she thought she would never meet. And it's these moments that make Ryuuko's feelings bloom even stronger in her chest in a way that romantic feelings never had before. She knew familial love from the Mankanshokus, and a kind of deep platonic love with her dearest friend Senketsu. But this? These feelings? She can hardly handle the neutron-star weight and warmth.

She spends most hours of the day alone, while Satsuki is away at work. Never one for deep introspection or sitting around, Ryuuko uses this time to distract herself from her conflicted feelings over whether she'll fully move in, and from the struggle of being in close, personal quarters with her sister-slash-object-of desire. Self-control is as inconceivable to Ryuuko as understanding Mako's thinking process. She finds herself people-watching on streets and in parks, from store balconies and shop windows. She wishes she had a motorcycle again; grease and gas and exhaust and the scent of the very wind and sun were good distractions. And nothing, nothing blocked out thoughts like the heavy rumble of an engine. But hers was in the shop, and in any case, nothing could distract her when it mattered - when, at the end of each day, Satsuki returned, lugging along with her coat and purse the complex issues that Ryuuko tried so hard to avoid. It certainly didn't help that Satsuki rarely seemed to sleep; Ryuuko heard her at all hours of the night pacing the penthouse suite, followed by the ruffle of curtains of the minute squeak of the door hinges, or the shuffle of feet on the carpet. Even in the safety of her half-rest Ryuuko was confronted with images of her sister - although these were more confusing, their color darker. Why Satsuki didn't sleep well was easy to guess at, and difficult to address. What Ragyo had done, what a decade plus of planning and paranoia must've bred - none of it could be good.

All in all, it took justs a week, a single week, for this to bubble over, to spill and leak and finally explode.

Satsuki enjoys lounging in just a bathrobe. Ryuuko didn't know this. Not until, in the dark of her midnight trip to the kitchen on the final night of this trial run, she comes across the barely-clothed woman enjoying a spot of tea alone on the chaise lounge. Satsuki is naked but for the plush white bathrobe barely tied around her body. The robe leaves little to the imagination as it struggles to contain her chest. It rests only so far down her thick, strong thighs - crossed, as always, and teasing unintentionally. Ryuuko stops dead in her tracks when she sees this. There's nothing she can do, nothing she can say, no way to stop the drool coming out of her mouth and it's only when she moves to wipe that away with the sleeve of her pajama top that Satsuki becomes aware of her, thanks to the rustling of her clothing.

"Couldn't sleep?" she asks. The moonlight bathing her is absolutely stunning. White has always been Satsuki's color, and the moonlight shooting in rays through the window all but paints the woman in alabaster like a marble sculpture. And sculpted, perfectly sculpted is exactly what Ryuuko thinks of her sister. She doesn't even answer for a few moments as she has to remind herself of just how to move her mouth and use her tongue to speak.

"I need a drink." She swallows thickly, and that cup of water is really sounding good right about now. "I'm a bit, uh, thirsty?"

"Sit, then; I'll make you some tea." she moves to stand, and Ryuuko waves her hands frantically to stop her. "What's the matter?"

"I just want something real quick. I'm going to go right back to bed."

"Oh, that's a shame," she still stands, and with confident steps walks over to Ryuuko. Satsuki's body blocks out the light of the moon, and she is shrouded from the front eclipse-like. She is close, very close to Ryuuko, and the younger woman shudders involuntarily when the barest brush of Satsuki's robe rubs against her own thin pajamas. Satsuki holds her cup of tea in one hand, but with the other she gently cups Ruuko's chin and raises it to meet her eyes. "I would've liked to take care of you." Her eyes are predatory and her poise aquiline, and yet, while there isn't a shred of nervousness - Satsuki will never be nervous, it seems - there is a question of boundaries and permission, all of it confusing and striking and maybe for the first time Ryuuko dares to believe that her feelings are mirrored in Satsuki, that she isn't the only one who wants to ravish her own sister.

"I've never needed anyone to take care of me." Ryuuko raises her still-held chin to more certainly look into her sister's eyes. Her words aren't meant to be challenging but she can't bite back the undercurrent to what she's said. It's true, really. Or it was, until very late in life, when she first arrived at Honouji.

"You've never had it. It's never been an option for you." Satsuki corrects. She drops Ryuuko's chin and looks to the wall over her shoulder, as if she is seeing something projected there she cannot explain. "Not the kind of love and attention I feel you need. Mako, of course, not withstanding." Satsuki turns back to Ryuuko. The younger woman does not know what Satsuki sees when she looks at her. She hopes it's something good. She hopes it's something good enough. "But I plan to correct that."

"An' how do you plan on doing that?" Ryuuko forces out with as much bravado, and as much challenge, as she can muster. Her delinquent dialect slips through like a bull through a fence, brutal and harsh. It's all she can do to keep herself, and hopefully the situation, in check. It's already as hard as it possibly can be to not just give up and melt into her sister right there. It is night, the time when secrets hidden from the Sun flourish and thrive and overcome the binds of the day. Night is the time of freedom. And more than anything Ryuuko wishes in this moment for the freedom to take her sister then and there.

"By force, if necessary."

Ryuuko laughs, haughty and defiant. She knows her sister is kidding. There never had been a winner between the two, and as she said back in her office, she is done demanding things. This back and forth is simply how they do things. "Ya still think you can take me?"

"I think," she says, "That I won't have to. You'll give yourself up to my care without a fight."

"An' what makes you so sure of that?"

"Because I would do the same for you." Satsuki finishes her tea and places the teacup down. She folds her arms across her chest and once more looks down the bridge of her nose at her sister. "And we're far more alike than either of us would like to admit."

"I never had the patience for scheming like you do. Or those big ol' eyebrows."

"No, you certainly don't share my capacity for long-term planning. But you aren't stupid, sister. I don't want you to think that either." Satsuki pauses to take a breath, or, Ryuuko thinks, maybe for dramatic effect. The woman is known for her theatrical oration. Each rise and fall of her chest, however, only reminds Ryuuko of the single layer of cottony material separating her from her sister's body - not to mention the thoughts of just how good Satsuki could be with her tongue, if those oratory skills are taken literally. "Ryuuko Matoi - stand with your back straight and your head held high. Tell me, without hesitation: how do you feel in this moment?"

The question isn't exactly what Ryuuko is expecting. She figured it'd be the answer to whether or not she'd continue living there. Yes, Satsuki's question is something of a demand - but the fact that it is phrased a question, the fact that Satsuki has not tried to tear from her reading of Ryuuko's words and body language and action just how she feels and instead gives her the option to speak - gives her an out...the freedom, the escape in these words speak not only to the changes she's undergone, but to the same questions of boundaries her eyes asked minutes before. So Ryuuko hesitates. Her jaw clenches and her eyes narrow in serious thinking. She reaches up to grasp at that spot again where Senketsu was - is, _is_ because she always holds him in her heart.

But she does hesitate. The question catches her off guard just enough to freeze her lips, and in that moment Satsuki nods, once, to herself, and lowers her eyes. She never looks away - she still never shows even an ounce of weakness, but her posture straightens more, if that's even possible, and she takes a step back from Ryuuko. "I'll go and get you that glass of water - " she begins, turning, and it is only the half view of her back plainly fleeing that strikes Ryuuko back into action. Fire surges in her chest. Anger, like a spring storm, flashes through her without warning, and in a half second she grabs the arm of Satsuki's robe and pulls her back. The woman turns to her, now with the right arm of her robe pulled down near her waist and her ample breast exposed, but all that Ryuuko notices is the flash of surprise on Satsuki's face. The older woman tenses; her body reacts like that of the warrior she truly is inside, and Ryuuko knows that, had she been anyone else, she'd likely have had the grab reversed and her own arm broken three ways before she hit the floor. But she does not let any of this hold her up, and she pulls the woman even closer, until they're chest to chest and her hands travel up to either side of Satsuki's powerful jaw and she stands on her tip toes to close the difference in their height before smashing their mouths together.

There is an inferno ignited in Ryuuko. A tightening of her heart in her chest, a snap in her self control, a knot in her very fibers coming undone, and all of the pressure held behind that knot explodes outwards. Satsuki's lips are as full and wet and soft and all other good things. The older woman is frozen for a moment, but before Ryuuko can question it she's being kissed back just as forcefully. Satsuki's strong hands grip at her waist, and she pulls their bodies flush. Ryuuko feels Satsuki's breasts being crushed against the top of her own, but her breath is all but gone and she can't think straight. She can't think at all. They're battling again, the two of them, like they did from her earliest days at Honouji, and it appears that the animosity between them hasn't been lost; it's only been misplaced, or buried, or remade into whatever this is now that they've quit actively trying to kill the other. She stops kissing Satsuki seconds into the action but, with her mouth all but plastered on her sister's, she growls out **"Frustrated"** against her lips. Frustrated. It's all of her pain and all of her hopes, all of her confusion, her lust and desire, her self-admonishment and stormy indecision, her fears of abandonment, of being a monster, and her casting-off of self control all given the closest thing to a word she can think of with her nose full of the clean-linen-and-crisp-air scent of her sister filling her head, and her mouth tasting the tea she had been drinking only minutes before. Ryuuko hears Satsuki's heart beating hard in her chest like a hammer on an anvil. Her sister's skin is soft and youthful under her fingers, but not pampered - there are scars she feels that she cannot see, whether from training or from their own battles, or from the panther claws of her mother, from the month when Satsuki was a prisoner. A month the strong woman still refused to speak about except in snippets and implications, in whispers of the past.

But none of that matters on this night. It will matter later. It will matter for years. Now, though, Ryuuko has to deal with the kiss she already returned to after letting out that single word. She floats in an otherworldly fracture of attention; her mind is elsewhere and her body is moving, reacting, kissing, grasping, growling, groping, without her input. She thinks she feels Satsuki do the same, but for the sake of her sanity, and after a surge of realization like lighting striking a power-line, she pulls away from her sister. "Oh my God, Satsuki, shit, I didn't mean to, just - please, please don't think I'm a freak! I - damn it, after everything..."

As she retreats she trips on her own feet and falls. Ryuuko rubs at her behind and slams her fist into the rug beneath her, only barely cognizant of the fact that she has to hold back her innate strength lest she punch a crater in the floor. It doesn't matter that she had felt Satsuki kiss her back. After everything the two of them had been through - after both being victims of their mother's sexual violation - she cannot reconcile herself with what she's done. There is an immense guilt welling up, wave-like, in her core. She can't look her at her sister, and hides behind her messy bangs. A dark chuckle escapes her lips like rumbling thunder. "I'm no better than Ragyo, am I?"

Slap!

Ryuuko looks up, eyes wide, at Satsuki. She rubs her cheek absentmindedly; it's warm, and it stings more than anything, and she's sure it'd burn bright red were the room to be lit by anything but the moon. Her sister's glare pierces her like Bakuzan had. It's a black look she all but crushes Ryuuko with, and before the younger woman can react, Satsuki pulls her up by the collar. She dangles, lifeless, inches from the ground. "We have been over this, Matoi!" she enunciates each word in the same style she used to use in her spirit-crushing speeches back in her school president days. Ryuuko does her best to shrink away from the voice. It is difficult while being held above the earth. "You are nothing like that creature. Nothing. I will not have anyone disparaging you. Not even yourself." She lets Ryuuko go, and the woman collapses in a heap to the floor. "Now stand up - _stand up_ \- and look me in the eyes. You are no coward, Ryuuko."

The younger woman is drained after the back-to-back rush of emotions, the rocket rise and meteoric plummet of her spirits. Her legs are weak, but she listens to her sister anyway, because there is nothing else she can think of doing unless it involves sinking through the floor. She gulps. Satsuki is standing, again, like she had when she delivered her speeches, with her legs spread like the Colossus of Rhodes and her gaze as strong as the light that had once emanated from her very being. Ryuuko doesn't open her mouth. She waits for Satsuki to speak first. There is nothing she thinks she can say, anyway, except for 'I'm sorry' over and over again.

Satsuki doesn't say a word. Instead, she wraps her arms around Ryuuko tightly. She squeezes her sister in a hug as if Ryuuko might disappear otherwise. The warm hands gripping both her upper and lower back are localized fires. Ryuuko's arms hang limply at her side; in this fugue she still feels that they're useless, that they can do nothing but cause harm. The older woman does nothing and says nothing. Ryuuko, in the back of her mind, knows that her robe is still hanging off and is disgusted at herself for still noticing that in this situation. Soon enough Satsuki moves. Her face is stern, and, Ryuuko thinks, maybe even sad. Her hands grip Ryuuko's shoulders and she pulls back enough while still holding on to look her younger sister in the eyes. "I asked you last week if you thought I was a hard woman to read." Satsuki pauses, and Ryuuko gets the feeling she's supposed to respond. She still can't open her mouth, so instead she nods. "It seems that I'm so hard to read that I must be a different language entirely. I all but took you myself, tonight. It should have been apparent."

"Satsuki - "

"I kissed you back. You must have felt it."

"Wait, let me - "

"If I did not want you, you'd have been crushed beneath my heel. You know that better than anyone."

"I do, but - "

"There is nothing else to consider, then." Satsuki sighs, and looks softer, kinder, than perhaps ever before, and she gives Ryuuko a gentle smile. "Though really, I'm glad that you did worry about your own actions. That alone puts you far, far higher than our mother." Ryuuko is crushed into another hug, and this time she has the strength to return it. She searches for the right words but none come, nothing neat or perfect, so with her cheek pressed against her sister's chest she says what's on her mind.

"It feels kinda nice to know I'm not the only one between us who's got messed up tastes."

"That's something that seems to run in this family."

"You talked about laying plans earlier." Ryuuko pulls back just enough to gaze up at her sister with a smirk. The tears have dried around her eyes, but she ignores them. "Was this your plan, then? Get me to move in, even if I didn't _officially_ move in, and then wait for me to explode?"

Satsuki chuckles, and it's a sound Ryuuko wants nothing more than to hear again and again and again. "I had my doubts about your feelings the whole time. You wear your heart on your sleeve, dear sister, but I do not jump at guesses or ghosts. I simply figured that the right environment would be conducive to discovering the truth. And if you didn't feel the same way? Well, I still would have wanted to be the best older sister I could be."

Ryuuko lets her head fall back onto Satsuki's chest and closes her eyes in pleasure as the woman runs a hand through her messy hair. The line between comforting older sister and gentle lover is already being blurred into nothing, into a fuzzy horizon where both earth and sky blend into one. "There are lots of people who know we're sisters." she says, less upset than speaking the facts as she knows them. She is already presuming that the developments of this night will continue, will grow, will bloom and flourish. Any other ending isn't worth thinking about.

"You are quite literally the most powerful person on this planet, Ryuuko. I am the second. Who is there that could say a thing against us?" When Ryuuko opens her mouth to speak, Satsuki cuts her off. "Would Mako look at you any stranger than she did when you spoke to Senketsu? Would my four allies abandon me now, when they stuck by my side on what was essentially a suicide mission?"

Ryuuko blushes, and in the same instance curses herself for the silliness of it; she feels like a child again. Us, such a small word, rings as powerfully as anything Gamagoori might have yelled. She can feel Satsuki pulling them towards the white leather couch and she follows willingly. When Satsuki sits, Ryuuko lays across the sofa and lets her head fall on her sister's lap. "You're still all about power." she teases softly. "Shoulda expected that."

"Though this is an act of rebellion, no? Far more up your alley."

"Just shut up and kiss me." Ryuuko says. Her cheeks are burning and she's forgotten the reason she got out of bed in the first place long ago, but there is something so wonderful about being able to look up into the face of her sister as she leans over her, her long black hair tickling Ryuuko's face and those piercing eyes filled with an ease and comfort she has rarely seen in them, and those thick, emotive eyebrows all but smiling at her, that Ryuuko wouldn't trade this night for anything.

She wonders what Senketsu would say about all of these developments, but then her wondering is cut short as Satsuki does just what she asks. The older woman leans down and Ryuuko raises her upper back while one of her hands wraps around the back of Satsuki's neck. When their lips meet, there is less force in the kiss now. It's an embrace of victory, not a battle of passions. Ryuuko runs her other hand up Satsuki's chest and finally dares to cup her exposed breast. It's heavy in her hand, soft and firm, the pink nipple hard. She squeezes lightly. Her sister bites her lip, and it's a sharp, wonderful pain she feels, and then there's the taste of blood - one she's had so much, and so often, at the hands of Satsuki that she relishes in that rust-red taste, a manifestation of her and her sister's iron wills. There's a simmering, a burning, in her abdomen that sparked the moment she came across Satsuki that night, and it begins to burn hotter. She does her best to ignore it, if only because all of this kissing, and all of this comfort, is almost more than she can stand as it is.

Ryuuko doesn't know how long they stay like that, there on the couch. The moon is still bright and full, staining the darkness of the room with its inimitable purity. The kisses seem to come and go like the breeze, but she's resting on Satsuki's soft lap, the plush bathrobe soothing and cool against her head, and the older woman is humming an old tune Ryuuko doesn't know, something dreamy and sad. Her tyrant voice isn't made for songs in the way that it's perfect for speaking, but the fact that she's trying is what matters. Ryuuko has half a mind to turn herself over, twist her sister beneath her, and ravage her just as she fantasized time and time (and time and time) again. Just as strong, however, is the need for this affection she's being given, what with the humming and hand rubbing circles on her stomach and the sisterly feelings filling her heart. All of these feelings should be incompatible. They are incompatible. There is no reconciliation between her _desire_ for her sister and her desire for her _sister_, but at this point she does not - cannot care. As the product of two things that are also incompatible, her human biology and the parasitic, alien life fibers infesting her very DNA, she is the expert on the merger of hostile ideas. She can feel her lip begin to swell from when it was bitten. The pulsing ache is almost delicious.

She raises herself off of her sister's lap urgently, doing what she can not to disturb her. Satsuki looks at her but her face is unreadable in the half-shade of the dark room; the moonlight cuts across Satsuki's throat, angles down her breasts diagonally, and Ryuuko pulls the woman's face into the light. The older woman's eyes are half-lidded, and on her face is a serene smile that Ryuuko has seen very, very few times before this. "Satsuki," she says, her voice haughty and deep and full of want. "Satsuki, get your ass to your bed." she orders. As wonderful as laying there was, calm and together, she can no longer ignore the fire in her body.

The woman breathes deeply. She looks down at Ryuuko, and that gentle smile stretches into a smug grin. She rises from her seat and Ryuuko openly gawks at the way her lean muscles flex, how her shoulders bare the weight of her ample chest, how her thighs, taught and tight, propel her up. Satsuki grabs Ryuuko's collar, but this time she drags the woman closer, and they smash their lips together, tongues warring and lips mashing and breath lost in what little space opens up between them in small instances. Again, they separate. "Let me tell you this, Ryuuko. I have been holding back since first we fought at Honouji." her expression warps into something predatory, and the younger woman trembles with anticipation. "I hope you're ready."

They do not make it to Satsuki's bed. They don't make it to Ryuuko's either.

* * *

It is not yet morning, but it's hardly still night when Ryuuko finally finds the time to gauge the events of the hours that had just passed. She is gazing across the room out of the window at the few skyscrapers she can see, whose bright squares of artificial light take on an ethereal glow in the pre-dawn sky. Her head is resting on Satsuki's chest, near her heart, and the woman is using her strong fingers to lazily massage the muscles at the base of her neck. It's more than distracting, and every time she thinks of what she wants to say, this simple pleasure buries those words where she can't find then. The exhausted women are laying on the plush carpet beside the couch, which is now broken beyond repair; it sags down in the middle and touches the floor, while both armrests are bent and crooked like old trees leaning towards a home. The leather is torn, the stuffing gutted. The destruction is entirely worth it, in Ryuuko's opinion.

Still, she knows that whatever it is she wants to say, even as the edges and corners of this confession emerge and submerge with the movements of Satsuki's lithe fingers, has to be said. She tries to quiet her mind by listening to the beating of Satsuki's heart beneath her head. Deep and resonating, the sound is a treasure. Ryuuko knows that Satsuki's heart is not like hers; it is flesh, it is fallible, it is so very human. And so very different from the thing beating in Ryuuko's alien ribcage. They're sisters, but they'll never be the same.

Satsuki wraps those strong arms around her body and pulls her in for a kiss. It feels wonderful - Satsuki's lips on her own, their bodies all but melting into one, this hyper-awareness of some other being in space in time. Ryuuko has known so much of Satsuki's body, even before tonight. Her eyes have mapped her sister from top to toe, and she already knew something of Satsuki's touch, if punches and kicks counted. All of this is sweeter still. But something continues to nag at her like a bruise every time her thoughts pass over it, nudging it and blooming in pain.

"Hey, uh, Satsuki," she turns over and raises herself above her sister, arms on either side of her head, and she looks down into the woman's face. She does her best to fix her expression into the concern she feels and ignore how her breasts brush against Satsuki's. "Really, you're alright with this? I know that mo-_Ragyo_...I know what happened. An' I get it, if it's too much. I'll' - "

Satsuki raises a hand up to Ryuuko's face and caresses her cheek. She has never looked softer, more open, than this and the sight rips the air right out of Ryuuko's lungs. "We all have scars, dear sister. I will not shy away from mine," she says, in her ever-confident tone. "And I will not allow them to prevent me from reaching my goals. I never have, and I never will."

"An' those are?'

"You, Ryuuko. You, and fixing the mess our mother made."

Ryuuko shifts and returns to laying beside Satsuki with her head on her breast. Her movements are slow; Satsuki's words hit her in a way she should've expected, but didn't. Direct, sharp, and straight to the heart of the matter. She's left without a base, her final mental obstacle toppled from beneath her. What else is there? She wants to voice these thoughts, but she can't. Her body feels heavy, and exhaustion is finally catching up to her. She wants to sleep, and maybe think about this in the morning. Or maybe not. Maybe there's no point to question any of it. Satsuki loves her and Satsuki _loves_ her. That's what's important.

"Listen, sis," Ryuuko begins. Lying on her own side, she presses herself closer into Satsuki's and distractedly runs a hand up and down the woman's toned stomach; their legs are intertwined. Her admittance is embarrassing - the words at the tip of her tongue are mortifying in their vulnerability. She swallows heavily, as if that'll help the words slide up her throat from her heart. "I wanna - Satsuki, can I still - " she shakes her head and then turns to look her sister straight in the eye. "I'm movin' in with ya, alright? An' I'd like to see you try an' stop me." she growls.

"On the contrary, I'd like to see you take that back. Don't think I'll just let you turn back now."

Ryuuko shifts upwards, then, until her eyes are at the same level as Satsuki's. She blushes as deeply red as that single lock of hair on her head, but her face is angry, almost comically so. "Gah, just let me sleep, alright? Let's leave the mornin' for all of this." she turns over, her back to Satsuki, and shivers in pleasure when the woman wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her as close as she can.

As she drifts off in the growing light of a new day, Ryuuko can tell that her sister is still awake. The body against hers is still wound up, just a bit, just enough to be noticeable; she's uncertainly stiff, and there's too much pressure and thought in the hand resting on the soft skin below her navel for the dead-weight of sleep. Ryuuko suspects that this is not a problem even love can solve outright, by simply existing, by being given with all of her life-fiber-infused heart. So, half in sleep and with full conviction, Ryuuko promises to do what she can to help her sister.

But that too will wait until she wakes up again. For now she settles into Satsuki's side and sleeps, and dreams.

* * *

**Boy, if there's one thing this re-watch taught me, it's that I have a very, very sensitive weakness for Ryuuko's voice/dialect. And for Satsuki's as well, if that needs to be said. The voice acting was really top notch. In any case - **

**Thanks for reading!**

**Reviews, criticisms, and responses are all welcome!**


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